| 07 December 2009
Championship week is over folks. The BCS is laid out for us and we've got about of month for debate and back and forth over the internet, airwaves and newspapers. Right now let's get to the good, the bad and the ugly of this last week as league championships were decided, BCS bids were lost in a flash and Heisman campaigns were killed or elevated.
No need to knock out the GBU for all six league; the Big Ten was only semi active with their lone highlight coming on the Illinois heartbreaking defeat at Fresno State, the ACC, SEC and Big XII all had just one contest and the other games weren't numerous enough to launch a full scale Good, Bad and Ugly beat down.
Read more for the run down for the week that was:
The Good
-Arizona quarterback Nick Foles, his stat line wasn't great (22-40, 239 yds, 2 TDs, 1 INT) but his poise was absolutely unbelievable. He stood tall in the pocket, he didn't appear fazed by the USC defense and he led Mike Stoops' team to the victory. With the 'Cats potent passing attack working very well they didn't need to run the football; three Arizona wide receivers had five or more catches. The sophomore has elevated the Wildcats to second in the Pac 10 and are literally an overtime game away from what would have been their first Pac 10 title.
-The Pittsburgh/Cincinnati game was the least hyped of the "conference title games" however it turned out to be one of the best. Pittsburgh jumped out to an early lead. Myself and others thought the game was over; Cincinnat and Brian Kelly had been exposed.
They were down 31-10 and surely folks at Notre Dame were reconsidering hiring Kelly. Then Tony Pike and Mardy Gilyard turned this blowout into a contests and Pitt's Dion Lewis did his best to keep the Panthers ahead. The game went down to the wire and the one point win was perfect for the end of the Bearcats "survive and advance" season.
-CJ Spiller played like a the special talent that he's shown flashes of being all season. The senior running back carried the ball 20 times for 233 yards, a career high on the ground. He put four touchdowns on the board and carried the Clemson offense for the entire game. For the first time of his four year stint at Clemson the 5'11" 195 lb kid from Lake Butler, Florida actually played like a running back.
He wasn't just looking to get to the corner, trying to avoid contact or making plays in the return game; Spiller was matching Tech's Jonathan Dwyer play for play and proved he was the best running back in the ACC. It was a great finale to a tremendous career as Spiller is set to have his jersey retired by the Tigers.
-Ndamukong Suh's Heisman hopes just went through the roof. He shut down the Texas offensive attack and unleashed havoc on the Horns, coming a literal clock tick away from upsetting Colt McCoy. Big Suh had 12 total tackles, 6 tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks and two quarterback hurries. As it stands right now, according to Stiff Arm Trophy.com the big man is right in the thick of the Heisman voting.
The Bad
-The ACC's defensive effort in the title game was just plain bad. Combined the two teams amassed 883 yards of total offense, 656 rushing the football. The massive amount of yardage given up, specifically on the ground, pale in comparison to the fact that neither team forced a punt for the entire game.
Sure Dwyer, Nesbitt and Spiller are a lethal threesome running the football but Clemson's defense was supposed to be among the nation's best in the front four and they gave up 100 yard rushing efforts to two players.
-Southern California's on the field production and execution. Against a pretty decent Arizona squad the Trojans were unable to rise to the Wildcats' level of intensity. Stoops squad led all game and they physically had their way with the men of Troy. Highly touted freshman quarterback Matt Barkley threw for just 144 yards while the Trojans leading rusher Alan Bradford only gained 66 yards.
Southern Cal has fallen upon hard times as their defense is not the stopping force they once were and the offense has proven itself impotent time and again. Pete Carroll and Co have their offseason work laid out for them if the program wants to return to their normal BCS spot after spending this holiday season in San Francisco playing BC in the Emerald Bowl.
-Pittsburgh back up quarterback Andrew Janocko. He's the holder for the Panthers' field goal and extra point units. He's done a great job all season until the final score for the Wannstedt's crew. The snap for the extra point was perfect but Janocko botched the hold and Pitt, in turn, would miss the opportunity to put seven on the board and have to settle for six.
Sure they might have lost in overtime but the fact that they never got to OT because of the hold has got to be a hard one to swallow. That's a tough feeling for the Panthers and even tougher reality for the sophomore Janocko to live with this offseason.
The Ugly
-Charlie Weis and the Pete Carroll situation. By now I'm sure we've all read the Irish Illustrated comments by Weis regarding Carroll "living in Malibu with a grad student." We've also seen the somewhat odd, incredibly clumsy attempt at clearing things up that Charlie issued on this Monday morning. Personally, I don't care if it is true or not. Pete Carroll's personal life is of no consequence to me. I want him to win ball games, put players in the NFL and keep needling Rick Neuheisel and Jim Harbaugh.
This gets slammed into the ugly bracket for two reasons. First is the "Tiger Woods" affect that this could have on a program. Woods is just a golfer, he's only responsible for himself. Carroll is a program caretaker and if he goes down the SC Trojans could be staring down the barrell of a long spiral towards mediocrity.
On a lighter note this gets the ugly tag because of Weis' complete ignorance to the bro code. He pulled a straight up Kobe Bryant and tried to pull down someone else with him. Not cool bro, not cool. Take your firing like a man; this is worse than Lane Kiffins finger pointing.
-Colt McCoy's Heisman shot and overall untarnished record took such a massive shot on Saturday that he has dropped out of the Heisman top three. His gross clock mismanagement should have cost Texas the game but the officials were quite generous in their desire to give the Longhorns one more shot.
McCoy can say "he knew there was a second or two" all he likes but the fact remains, if Suh doesn't rush the throw McCoy and his Horns are playing in the Orange Bowl against Georgia Tech, not battling Bama for the title.
-The Fiesta Bowl Committee's desire to be "the first non-title game to feature two undefeated teams" has genuinely handicapped the bowls ability to be profitable. First and foremost if the Broncos and Horned Frogs sounds familiar that is because a year ago we saw them play in the Poinsettia Bowl just a year ago. Secondly, the truth is neither of these universities is known for their legions of traveling fans or massive alumni chapters in the greater Phoenix area.
They're going to sell less hotel rooms, less tickets and draw a smaller television audience than if they were able to separate the two non-traditional powers and use a proven ratings, fanbase and brand name to carry Boise State and TCU.
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